


Can't Be Loved

by quicksylver28



Series: Prompts, Drabbles & Teasers [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Female Tony Stark, I'm not sure where this is going, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:35:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quicksylver28/pseuds/quicksylver28
Summary: Antonin Isobel Stark, Toni Edwards to everyone else, Nina to her friends is not your typical young woman. Working at a strip club to pay for her robotics obsession, she meets a man who is not what he seems. Can she find love in the most unlikely of places?or is it that she can't be loved?





	Can't Be Loved

**Author's Note:**

> what i am doing to get around my writer's block over my HP challenge. i am reading over my summary and it reminds my of when i used to read my old mills and boon novels. those were fucking awesome. 
> 
> FYI, this may or may not be continued any time soon. i am still in the middle of my HP challenge, after all.

Antonin Isobel Stark had never been one for convention. She'd bucked tradition ever since she'd been born breech. She'd bucked tradition when she'd proven the naysayers who'd preached about brain damage and learning disabilities by becoming a goddamned genius and prodigy. She'd really bucked tradition when she'd left home at seventeen to make her own way in life. Her mother'd been livid. Uncle Obie'd been pleased (once she'd signed away all her rights to the company her father had built. And her father? Well, he'd been dead five long years so he hadn't been anything.

Car crash. The details were very hush hush.

Jarvis still had her back though, sending her care packages to wherever she'd been staying at the time and accepting collect calls every Sunday night. He'd been well enough to see her graduate magna cum laude before losing a battle with leukemia. By that time she'd been settled in one place long enough to call it home.

A shitty loft apartment, more factory floor that living area, chocked full of her true life's passion, robotics. Piles of scrap, scavenged from junk piles and abandoned army bases, carted into the city with her scratched blue murderer's van which leaked oil and had her under the hood more days than she drove the fucking thing.

But hey, both the lease and van had been cheap so she couldn't really complain.

Most of the space was workshop, with bed and hotplate shoved up into a corner near the open bath. The roof leaked and the heater was held together with duct tape and chewing gum but it was a place where she could work and pass out on a mattress when she couldn't work anymore. Rinse and repeat, over and over.

The alarm on her phone went off, a harsh screeching noise that always made her jump, her heart racing. She kept it because it was the only thing that actually got her to wake up. Everything else she slept through. Police sirens, screams, gunshots, she snored through it all. She cursed hotly and scrabbled for the devise, sitting up and cursing again as she squinted at the bright screen.

"Shit. I'm late"

She threw herself out of the bed, flinging the covers aside as she made a dash for the bath, stripping off her large sleep shirt as she went. A cursory wash and a quick check to see if she needed a shave, then she was pulling on a pair of yoga pants and a vest and shoving her feet into sneakers. Her ratty leather jacket and go-bag were grabbed up with her phone and keys and she was out the door in under five minutes.

She ran to the subway, just catching her train thanks to the multi-pass she'd invested a chunk of salary into. Collapsing unto the plastic seat, she dug into her bag and grabbed her ear phones, pumping her tunes during the short twenty minute ride. She took the time to tie her laces properly and manage her ebony curls into some semblance of order.

Her stop came soon enough and she was bounding up the steps to the brightly lit street. Chuck Cherries was one of the better strip clubs in the area, with sanitary conditions and vigilant bouncers but it was still a strip joint. It wasn't one of the high end places uptown that called themselves gentlemen's clubs and called the girls hostesses as an actual job title and paid just as well. But it was a good enough place with good enough people.

The best thing about it was the good beer on tap which got the clients just drunk enough to part with their hard earned money willingly. Turns out repressed business men paid through the nose for a glimpse at some titties and ass. And boy, was she willing to take their money for herself.

Toni pushed her way through the back entrance, nodding to the bouncer perched on a poorly welded stool.

"You're late" he gruffed, "Boss is looking for you."

She grinned at him in return, patting his whiskered cheek. "Awww, Bobby. You know it gets me all wet when you talk rough to me. I'd be soaking through my panties if I were wearing any."

He shook his head at her usual banter, waving her off with a chuckle. He knew not to take her seriously. The girl may be a bit crazy but she had one rule that she stuck to without fail. She never fucked anyone from work. Oh, there'd been many who'd tried to talk her around from that conviction but she never budged.

Toni dropped her bag unto the floor next to her station, leaning around the stripper currently occupying her chair to take one of the bon bons from a small gold box. Stuffing it into her mouth with a moan, she stripped off her jacket and danced away from a lazy slap from the chair's occupant. Fuck, that was good.

And considering her only meal since yesterday had been two packets of sweet and sour sauce and the end of a sandwich off of someone's plate at an outdoor café. She hadn't the time or money to get food cause she'd just spent her last dime on a precision oscillator for one of her projects.

"Which one of your suitors gave you this Timmy? Cause he's a fucking keeper if he keeps bringing you stuff like that."

"Only if he agrees to take care of me when I get big and fat from all this chocolate." Tim frowned and popped another bon bon into his mouth, chewing petulantly. "This one's married though. He comes in twice a month like clockwork and spends half my lap dance crying about how much they hate his guts. I don't see white picket fences anytime soon."

"Shit.." he exclaimed, tossing his pink hair over his bare shoulder, "… I'd take a two story walk up in Brooklyn if it got me out from where I am now. My roommate had just discovered that he likes cock and is under the impression that being a stripper is that same as being a hooker and that I should be all too happy to give him a freebie or five."

"Amen sister." Desra from two seats over huffed, flipping on her bright red wig. "Ain't that always the fucking truth"

Toni cackled, throwing her yoga pants at her bag and pulling on the glitter red white and blue panties that was part of her all American costume. July fourth had come and gone but people seemed to like the routine a lot. She even had a blonde wig and a little Captain America shield to go with it. The boots came next, then the bra, tiny fringed waist coat and gloves.

She was putting the finishing touches on her outfit when Chuck Cherry himself came into the dressing room.

"Frog on a pogo stick, Edwards… what did I tell you about your tardiness?" the tall man in a polo shirt and khakis stood in the doorway, massive arms folded across his barrel chest. "I'm trying to run a business here, this ain't the Tender Trap down on 56th and Hamm. We have mother father standards here."

"I'm sorry Chuckie…" Toni twists her face to keep from laughing. "I'll try my best. That's all I can promise. Besides, if I don't piss you off, how else are we ever going to witness you trying your best not to curse. It will never not be funny to hear the words Balderdash and Son of a Monkey coming from your mouth. "

Chuck huffed, "Using curse words is a sin and damns the soul to hell."

Toni blinked at him for a second and threw her hands up at the room around them. "Chuckie doll, you own and operate a strip club. If this isn't a den of iniquity and illicit, amoral behaviour then I don't know what is."

He shook his head and warned her about her time management one more time before turning on his heel and leaving, mumbling 'and don't call me chucky doll' over his shoulder as he went.

Trading a high five with Tim, she took the seat he'd finally vacated so she could see about her hair and makeup. Tucking her hair into a net cap, she donned the wig and fluffed it to look as natural as possible. The little officer's cap was next, pinned at a rakish angle. The makeup was a bit heavy handed but she needed something to stand up under the bright lights of the stage.

Desra leaned her head back into the room and called out the five minute warning. After that there was a flurry of activity in the room as all the dancers took care of last minute adjustments. Toni was just putting the last touched on her mascara when the fanfare music began and the DJ started up on his spiel. She stood and gave herself a once over in the mirror, nodding in satisfaction.

"Showtime girls" She gave herself a wink and a grin and pushed up her boobs, "let's get this party started."


End file.
